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The presidential race has grown closer since Mitt Romney and Barack Obama squared off in the first of three debates, with the Republican challenger edging ahead in the polls in several key states. But Romney never was the underdog depicted by the mainstream press, and Obama's path to victory is much steeper than his campaign team appreciates; they've long felt they have it in the bag.

Former GOP demographer John Morgan Sr. says Obama's biggest problem is that the national temperament leans Republican, as evidenced by the 2010 midterm elections, where Republican victories were both widespread and deep. The party not only captured the U.S. House of Representatives, it also scored big victories at the state-government level, even in places like Pennsylvania that are perceived as predictably Democratic.

For Romney, winning the White House could prove less difficult than it has been portrayed by the mainstream media.
Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

Political scientists generally discount the predictive power of midterms—and with good reason—but this time may be different. Turnout for these contests generally is short of its potential by 30% to 40%, which is too low to be reflective of the nation's mood, the argument goes. And a party that is out of power typically scores gains in a midterm because its adherents are frustrated, angry, and consequently more energized than the incumbent party. This was true in 2006 when Democrats took back Congress from the GOP. In 2010, a backlash against Obamacare by Republicans certainly was the biggest factor in their rout of the Democrats.

But Morgan reasons that the 2010 election was not your run-of-the-mill midterm. "It was historic," he says, comparing it to epic GOP victories in 1894 and 1924. "This was as good as any of them. In the Senate we won 25 seats and lost 13. This is astounding."

It was no freak accident, he says, that the party picked up the seat in Massachusetts that had belonged to liberal icon Ted Kennedy. There were also Senate victories in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—industrial-belt states where union membership is strongest. Morgan says these victories were notable, given the hammering the party received in both 2006 and 2008.

In the House, the GOP picked up a net 63 seats. This was the largest midterm loss for House Democrats since 1938, when the party lost 72 seats. In the Senate, it gained 12.

On the state level, the Republicans won big, almost down to dogcatcher. The party picked up 10 governorships, versus five pickups for the Democrats. There are 29 Republican governors today to 20 for Democrats and one independent, Lincoln Chafee, in Rhode Island.

Republicans also gained 13 statehouses in 2010. They now control 21 state governments, versus 11 for the Democrats. The parties split control in 17 states, not counting Nebraska because it elects a nonpartisan state legislature.

Morgan's favorite map shows the number of state congressional delegations dominated by one or the other party. The GOP has 33 delegations, versus 16 for the Democrats and one tie state. Weak spots for Republicans are in the Northeast and the West Coast—places where Republicans have never been exceptionally strong. Morgan says the party's 2-1 lead in delegations is a strong indicator of party strength. Prior to 2010, the Democrats had the 2-1 lead.

Morgan argues that in light of 2010's dramatic results, Romney's path to victory is less difficult than it has been portrayed throughout the campaign. In the remaining weeks, Obama will have to visit states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio—states that he won in 2008—because he's not as popular as he used to be. Otherwise, he could focus on swing states. Obama is down in part because the economy is much less robust than he promised it would be back in 2009. But the growth of Republican-leaning suburbs and counties is another major factor.

DEMOCRATS ALSO HAVE DEMOGRAPHERS. They perceive a country that looks exactly the opposite of what Morgan sees. They assert that just as in 2008 they have a lock on young voters, female voters, and minorities, including a huge block of Hispanics. The same base that propelled Obama into the White House in 2008 will keep him there in 2010, the argument goes. "Our coalition has coalesced. The election is over," says Democratic demographer Morley Winograd.

He's been saying this since late September. And Winograd's triumphalism doesn't end with an Obama victory on Nov. 6—he maintains that the Democratic Party will control national politics in this country for at least the next 40 years. His reasoning? A young generation of "civic-minded" voters who favor "collective solutions" to our problems is supplanting baby boomers as the country's core constituency. These so-called Millennials were born between 1982 and 2004 in numbers larger than the boomers, who came along between 1946 and 1964. (Between 1964 and 1982 came a smaller birth group, the "Gen Xers," who by and large voted Republican.) In 2008, Millennials cast 18% of the 69.5 million votes received by Obama. Since 2008, 19 million Millennials have turned 18 and are eligible to vote in November.

"Millennials say the role of government is to be our parent. Parents set rules. That's what they want government to do," Winograd says. Millennial Makeover, a 2008 book that Winograd co-wrote with Michael D. Hais, cited research showing that Millennials strongly supported the government bailouts of banks and the auto industry and love belonging to the Democratic Party.

Democrats believe the margin of the president's re-election victory over Romney will be about the same as it was in 2008 when Obama beat the Republican John McCain by about 9.5 million votes.

Morgan concedes that Obama could win the popular vote. But he will have a difficult time winning the electoral vote because so many states are either solidly Republican or lean Republican.

His analysis finds each candidate with a solid 200 electoral votes in his pocket. Romney can count on every Southern state except Virginia, he says, which is a toss-up at this point. The South includes two key states, North Carolina, with 15 electoral votes, and Florida, with 29. Obama, meanwhile, has a strong hold on the Northeast and the West Coast.

The Voting That Counts: Though President Obama could win the popular vote, Romney is well on the way to locking up the necessary electoral votes, says GOP demographer John Morgan. Here's his read on each state, along with their electoral votes.

Morgan, who made his first demographic election prediction in 1958, when he was 13—and went on to make calls in every election year since—has a good track record. His first clients were Republican politicians in Indiana. "I told them how much they'd lose by," he jokes. He worked for George H.W. Bush when he ran against Ronald Reagan and in 1981 was working for Reagan inside the White House.

Morgan called the GOP House victory in 2010. He helped Barron's call both the 2002 midterm election and the 2004 presidential race. Had we listened to him in 2006, we would have anticipated the Democratic takeover of Congress. Instead, we discounted his input, relying on our own formula that looked at political contributions by ZIP Code, and our prediction that the GOP would narrowly retain control of Congress was embarrassingly wrong.

THE DEMOGRAPHER SAYS THAT since 2008, Republican areas of key election states have been gaining population, a big plus for Romney. Also, Obamacare's mandates for birth control may have offended Catholics, a key Democratic voting block. Catholic voters, he opines, could determine the outcome of the election. He cites Iowa as an example. Iowa should be leaning Democratic because farm-equipment manufacturers and their employees in the eastern part of the state love the big Democratic farm bills. But he has it leaning Republican, because eastern Iowa is also home to most of the state's Catholics, who make up about 20% of the state's total population. "If the Catholics come through for Romney, then Obama will lose the state," Morgan says.

Iowans in 2010 elected a Republican senator and governor and two GOP House members. Democrats won two congressional seats, state treasurer, and state attorney general.

Ohio, which Obama won by about four points in 2008, could fall into Romney's camp, as well. A burst of employment, brought on in part by natural-gas fracking in the southern part of the state has helped to add GOP voters to the rolls of Republican counties. That's why Morgan has the state leaning Republican, even as polls say Obama leads. Delaware, Union, Licking, and Fairfield counties, near Columbus and on top of the Utica shale, have been the fastest-growing in the state for more than a decade, according to census data. Warren County, in suburban Cincinnati, is another dependably GOP community that has seen a population surge over the past decade.

In Pennsylvania, which leans Democratic, there was substantial growth in Republican counties, as well. In 2010, voters elected a Republican as U.S. senator and a Republican as governor, and they gave Republicans five additional members of Congress, a remarkable showing, considering that Pennsylvania voted Democratic in all five presidential elections from 1992 to 2008. In part it's because residents are moving from urban centers to places like Lancaster County, an economically robust area dominated by the GOP.

Michigan Democrats, too, have a problem because the state has been losing voters in economically depressed areas like Detroit, giving the outlying Republican counties more clout. This is why the state leans Republican, in Morgan's view.

He argues the 2008 election was an outlier, with factors that excited voter turnout to levels that are unlikely to be repeated this time around. Voter disgust with George Bush, the collapse of Wall Street, and a desire for a new, exciting candidate who promised to cooperate with Republicans all contributed to the Obamamania. Morgan believes voter turnout in 2012 will be closer to 2004, when 55.7% of the voting-age population cast a ballot for president, versus the 57.1% who cast a ballot for president in 2008. (The data come from the Census Bureau's 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States.) The average turnout in eight presidential elections from 1980 to 2008 is 52.9%. If Morgan is correct, then Obama won't have another nine million-vote advantage.

"Neither candidate is out of the race. Either one can win," he says. "But I think that Romney will pull it out. The big question revolves around turnout. How many people who voted for Obama in 2008 are going to stay with him? The answer to that is fewer."